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Chef vs OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (14th), Release Automation (5th)
OpenText ZENworks Configura...
Ranking in Configuration Management
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.6%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 3.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management is 1.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.6%
Chef3.5%
OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management1.8%
Other90.1%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
G Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Agent setup and complexity have limited automation benefits but have reduced manual patching work
There are other automation tools, configuration management tools in the market, which offer many good functionalities compared to Chef. For Chef, we need to install those agents, the Chef client, on all those nodes. That is another heinous task to perform on those nodes. Compared with other tools, they do not require any agent; they simply push configurations to all the clients. Chef needs to improve on this agent installation on all those nodes. I would say that the agent configuration is required, and we need to manage the workstation, the Chef server, and then the Chef client. These two or three things are very difficult. It is a time-taking task compared with other configuration management tools. They need to compete with other tools, such as Ansible or Terraform. They should work on their agent part. If they can remove the agent installation on the nodes and combine both the Chef server and workstation into one server, that will provide a significant benefit in cost for the clients. They should aim for an agentless architecture rather than an agent-based architecture, which will help other customers. That is a very difficult thing because I have stopped using Chef. If you have very good developers who are skilled in Ruby language and can write codes in the Chef recipe, then those developers should start using Chef.
it_user1272306 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at DoITWise
Helpful impact analysis and the discovery capability is quite good
This tool works hand-in-hand with RPA technology. RPA will allow you to control your servers by deploying the server automation agent. You don't have the discovery, but then you can deploy the policies that maintain the authorized versus current state. On top of that, you can use server automation to deploy patches or remediate configuration issues on the operating system. My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to ensure that the process is set up properly, first. Once the process is set up, the tool will do the rest for you. Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I would advise others this solution is easy to implement in the organization."
"Overall, Microsoft Intune has helped me manage devices more efficiently while maintaining better security and compliance standards across the organization."
"This product works very well for companies already using the full Microsoft suite."
"I have seen a return on investment right from the start of the tool's usage."
"Stable product that's easy to set up compared to other MDM products."
"I would say that it is at the top of the list when it comes to the competition."
"What I appreciate most about Microsoft Intune is that we can manage multiple devices simultaneously in a single frame of time, and I can manage everything remotely from anywhere."
"What I like the most about Microsoft Intune is its ability to manage mobile devices. Through integration with System Center, it can also manage desktops and laptops."
"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."
"The scalability of the product is quite nice; we have deployed it across six to seven organizations."
"Manual deployments came to a halt completely. Server provisioning became lightning fast. Chef-docker enabled us to have fewer sets of source code for different purposes. Configuration management was a breeze and all the servers were as good as immutable servers."
"Manual deployments came to a halt completely. Server provisioning became lightning fast."
"My clients are happy, which is the most important thing."
"Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good."
"Part of the reason why we have stuck with it is that it managed to effectively scale with us and stay stable at the same time."
"I wanted to monitor a hybrid cloud environment, one using AWS and Azure. If I have to provision/orchestrate between multiple cloud platforms, I can use Chef as a one-stop solution, to broker between those cloud platforms and orchestrate around them, rather than going directly into each of the cloud-vendors' consoles."
"Automatic Spiral Discovery: This feature enables deep and dynamic configuration and change management."
"The most valuable feature is the impact analysis."
"Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF."
"We use it for managing our desktops; we have 350,000 desktops and it allows us to manage and control them relatively easily."
"Helps me perform changes in connected infrastructure thanks to the discovery features."
 

Cons

"There can be more logs. I do not have any other requirements."
"The support is not very good. It's very poor."
"I have one remark about the application management for the Android version. Often, the Play Store opens and leaves the possibility to download to the user, which is not good."
"It just doesn't handle software updates well at all by itself. You need to be a scripting wizard to make those happen properly, or you use third-party tools."
"Microsoft Intune could be improved by adding short video tutorials or direct links to Microsoft articles in the information button."
"There were several bugs with stability."
"One major concern I have is user friction. When you enforce many policies and people log into apps like Microsoft Teams or Outlook, they encounter numerous MFA and other policies."
"The time we have to wait to deploy policies has room for improvement."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"I would also like to see more analytics and reporting features. Currently, the analytics and reporting features are limited. I'll have to start building my own custom solution with Power BI or Tableau or something like that. If it came with built-in analytics and reporting features that would be great."
"Other things would be the need to use Cinc if you want to use the open-source version because Progress Software's policy on copyright is confusing for new users and it puts a barrier in the way to adoption because many small, medium enterprises, startups, and non-profits who might want to use Chef would find the whole Cinc versus Chef situation confusing and the fact that there is not an easy path to install Chef and then go to a paid version without having to change from Cinc to Chef or Chef to Cinc."
"One thing that Chef needs to improve on is making it available in as many languages as possible."
"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."
"I chose a rating of seven because Chef is a great tool, but sometimes resource consumption is quite large, and it requires server-side setup, which is not required but should be considered if you are using server-client plus server."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"It needs dashboards."
"The native UI should be simplified because it is outdated and a little bit over-complicated."
"The infrastructure itself is stable, but the agent has a lot of problems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our Office 365 Business Premium license, including Office 365 and Intune Management, offers excellent value."
"Intune is available as an individual product, but it also comes with Office 365 Premium or an Enterprise license, and the price varies for each version."
"Its price is fair. It's a normal price. It isn't too expensive or too cheap."
"It comes as a bundle, so you do not really know what the prices are. Microsoft does not break it down to the user cost for us. It is just bundled with our E5 license."
"It's monthly for us, but it's built into the license cost that we pay our IT each month. It's maybe 129 Kroner per head, which translates to £10. There are some additional costs. Our IT had to set up and configure their own server, so there is an extra cost for that, but I'm not sure what that costs."
"With one user base license, we can use Intune for up to five devices. However, with Soti MobiControl, each license is tied to a single device, meaning one license is dedicated to one device only."
"There is a cost benefit of using Microsoft Intune because of the packaging with other Microsoft products."
"Every customer used to purchase licenses based on their needs."
"The price is always a problem. It is high. There is room for improvement. I do like purchasing on the AWS Marketplace, but I would like the ability to negotiate and have some flexibility in the pricing on it."
"Purchasing the solution from AWS Marketplace was a good experience. AWS's pricing is pretty in line with the product's regular pricing. Though instance-wise, AWS is not the cheapest in the market."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"I wasn't involved in the purchasing, but I am pretty sure that we are happy with the current pricing and licensing since it never comes up."
"We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"The price per node is a little weird. It doesn't scale along with your organization. If you're truly utilizing Chef to its fullest, then the number of nodes which are being utilized in any particular day might scale or change based on your Auto Scaling groups. How do you keep track of that or audit it? Then, how do you appropriately license it? It's difficult."
"This is a really good tool for the money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
30%
Construction Company
9%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise186
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise20
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?
The licensing cost is zero for Chef if you are using the free version. They have developed other versions, such as Sa...
What needs improvement with Chef?
There are other automation tools, configuration management tools in the market, which offer many good functionalities...
What is your primary use case for Chef?
We used Chef, the automation tool, as an Infrastructure as Code tool for configuration deployment, such as deploying ...
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Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
No data available
Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management, HPE CMS, HPE Configuration Management, Micro Focus Configuration Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Tech Mahindra, NNIT, ASIC
Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.